CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- When the dust finally settles following the Columbia tragedy and all of the investigation reports are written and blessed, it will be up to Mike McCulley and the 10,000 United Space Alliance (USA) employees to get the shuttle fleet flying again.

Only this time McCulley, 59, will be leading USA as its president and chief executive officer -- a position he assumed May 15 after previous boss Russell Turner departed to become president of Honeywell Engines, Systems and Services in Phoenix.

McCulley had served in the number two position of chief operating officer, but now takes command of NASA’s prime shuttle contract at one of the most critical periods in the history of human spaceflight, something the retired Navy captain told SPACE.com he is prepared for.

"I am optimistic that we will work our way through this, in a reasonable period of time, and get back to flying and building the space station and utilizing it the way it needs to be utilized during the coming years," McCulley said.

His optimism is shared in the warm smiles, handshakes and hugs he is greeted with as he spends time with fellow USA employees. McCulley is one of those rare executives who is as comfortable walking the shop floors as presiding over a boardroom meeting -- and seems to know everyone by name.

McCulley’s outlook isn’t naïve. As a former astronaut -- he flew once aboard shuttle Atlantis in 1989 -- he is aware that there still are some unknowns and challenges ahead for USA that could make life more difficult, more interesting or just different.

The unknowns include the timing and amount of work needed for the shuttle fleet's return to flight, the potential changes to the Space Flight Operations Contract (SFOC) as a result of the investigation or politics in general, and the general concerns at such times about morale amid rumors of layoffs.

Return to Flight

The number one goal for USA right now is to support NASA and the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in doing what needs to be done to get the shuttle fleet safely back into space again, McCulley said.

But exactly what should go into that "bucket of work" remains to be seen.

"I want to figure out how to make that bucket as small as possible and still be the right sized bucket," McCulley said, explaining that it’s likely there will be buckets for "must do" work, "do it soon" work and "let’s go study this" work.

A top concern is that too many people will want to take advantage of the down time in flying to add, in his opinion, unnecessary extra tasks to the "must do" bucket.

"You got a group of people in the program, both in the NASA and the contractor world, who views this is an opportunity to go get things done, and that bucket can get much larger than it needs to be if we're not careful," he said.

Following the 1986 Challenger disaster, the shuttle program took time to address hundreds of technical issues with the orbiter, even though the technical cause of the disaster was with the O-rings and field joints of the solid rocket boosters.

As new boosters were designed, fabricated, tested and certified, officials in other areas of the program implemented improvements in nearly every shuttle system -- all of that contributing to a nearly three-year halt in launches.

While McCulley agrees those changes were for the better, he believes the overall environment now compared to post-Challenger is different enough on a variety of levels that it shouldn’t take that long again to return to flight.

"I don't believe the fix this time, if the fix is predominantly to not have the foam coming off, is as complicated as it was then," McCulley said.

The leading theory for what caused the Feb. 1 loss of Columbia is that a breach in the thermal protection system on the leading edge of the left wing allowed hot gas to eat away at the wing’s interior, leading to the break up of the spaceplane over Texas. The breach might have been caused by insulating foam falling away from the external tank at launch and striking the wing.

Morale and Layoffs

As the return to flight effort continues with as many questions unanswered as answered, McCulley acknowledges that morale at USA and across the shuttle program could be better, but is quick to add that in no way is it a problem. Rather, it’s all still part of the grieving process following the loss of Columbia.

"All of our morale is down somewhat because of the accident. We lost seven people. We lost a national asset. Our lives, which were fairly stable and solid with a manifest in front of us for several years to come, all of that got disrupted on Feb. 1. And that has an impact on all us," he said.

And while it is perfectly natural and normal to be concerned about layoffs -- especially considering the massive job cuts that followed the Challenger disaster -- there is nothing like on the horizon this time around, McCulley said.

"Now, you're a USA employee sitting out there and you're a wrench turner and there's no wrenches to turn, because processing has slowed down, you get worried," McCulley said. "You read the headlines and some of them say stop human spaceflight. Congress is not telling me that. NASA's certainly not heading down that path."

Future of SFOC

McCulley’s biggest headache may come from efforts within NASA and the White House to break apart or re-compete the Space Flight Operations Contract that USA has held since 1996.

The SFOC plan was created to consolidate some 85 separate contracts in the shuttle program into a single prime contract with the hope that would lead to cost savings and a more efficiently run program. Boeing and Lockheed Martin formed USA to handle the job.

"I'm biased obviously because it's been my life for a dozen years, but you can't find a measurement that didn't get better in the six years between the start of the SFOC and now. You can't find it," McCulley said.

The original contract announcement said USA would be the single prime contractor for the shuttle program for six years beginning Oct. 1, 1996, at a total cost of $7 billion. A pair of two-year extensions were included to make it a 10-year, $12 billion deal. NASA exercised the first of those two-year options in 2002 but hasn’t decided what to do with the second extension. Even before the Columbia tragedy the future of the SFOC deal was unclear.

Critics of the SFOC have called it a monopoly, challenged the assumption that SFOC has saved the government money and called into question the soundness of making USA responsible for elements of safety that in the past has been NASA’s responsibility.

McCulley says USA and the SFOC is a "poster child for good government."

"I don't believe the criticisms of SFOC are valid. Again, I'll tell you that I've devoted 12-13 years of my life in putting this system together and making this system better, and taking it apart is just an abominable thought to me."